Multidots

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of operations at a startup media company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Multidots?

We hired them for web development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Multidots has built our WordPress website from scratch using PHP, implementing our UI/UX design. They've also provided broader strategic input by consulting plug-ins and functionalities on WordPress. Based on their recommendation, we chose WordPress VIP as a hosting server. The team also built the SEO architecture. Currently, they do additional development and maintenance for our site. 

What is the team composition?

I interface with three teammates from Multidots, including a project manager and discovery manager. Additionally, engineers are working on the site that I haven't interacted with. 

How did you come to work with Multidots?

I found them online, and they had very good reviews. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $65,000 on the initial build and an additional $10,000 in functionality we added before the launch. We've also spent $5,000 on the support plan.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2022, and the website launched in June 2022. Our engagement is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Multidots implemented our UI/UX design very well, and the site works as expected. Moreover, the site has had no downtime since we launched. Within the first 3–4 weeks of launching, we've been able to rank in the first spot for organic search results. Overall, the team's great to work with and very professional. 

How did Multidots perform from a project management standpoint?

They meet deadlines and stay within the budget. The team uses Basecamp for project management. Although communication is challenging when working with an offshore team, they handle our time difference as well as can be expected, and I'm happy with their responsiveness. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Multidots delivers a very good product at a relatively low price point. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You must be proactive in communicating with them and giving them clear and extensive feedback. Working remotely, you need to articulate your needs clearly in order to be happy with the result.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at a lead aggregation company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Multidots?

We wanted to increase our SEO.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Multidots has been working with us on implementing technical fixes to improve our SEO. In addition to that, they’ve also done WordPress web development and plug-in implementation to help me create a form and a style of a product that could allow students to have loan provider recommendations through a database. In addition to that, they’ve also reconfigured P2P files and some other technologies in our websites to optimize our site’s speed and Google Ads management.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with a project manager with a team of 2–3 developers who perform behind the scenes.

How did you come to work with Multidots?

They were referred to us by someone who knew about their work.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2019, and the engagement is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Our core web vitals are all green now, which is an important KPI for us.

How did Multidots perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is excellent, and they’re a great team to work with. In terms of tools, we use Microsoft Teams and Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re a knowledgeable WordPress team, which is difficult to find among developers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on — we’ve given them our feedback, and since then, everything has been fantastic.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Develop your business requirements ahead of time and make them as clear as possible. That has enabled us to have a process without hiccups because they understand what we want.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the marketing director for a data and analytics consultancy. We’re a professional services firm.

What challenge were you trying to address with Multidots?

We were trying to cost-effectively make our site more robust with content and update its design and usability. The site was custom-built on WordPress by a previous vendor, so we couldn’t go in easily to update it ourselves.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Multidots took over and started building the site. Our graphic designer did the initial design, and they did the code. We approved it and pushed it into production. Then, they worked on other things on the backend.

Additionally, they’ve provided some strategic guidance around conversions on landing pages and helped with our partner pages' layout and design. Our graphic designer has created them in terms of imagery and color, but Multidots has shown us competitive pages, recommendations on different site sections, and features we might want to include.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with three people. We have a primary contact, an account executive, and sometimes they bring Maggie (Project Coordinator) for conversion optimization.

How did you come to work with Multidots?

We found them on Clutch.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend around $3,500 per month, so it’s roughly $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2021, and our relationship is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’ve added more pages and seen more engagement with the site. There has been an increase in traffic, but I don’t know if we can attribute it to their work.

How did Multidots perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is excellent. They send us a spreadsheet every week so we can have a clear understanding of how many hours we have left on our monthly retainer. Communication is great; they’re super responsive. Also, our account executives give us great recommendations. We haven’t run into any issues so far.

We communicate with them through ClickUp, our project management tool.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Our site has a lot of custom code, and they’ve done an excellent job building on the pages without making any errors. We have a vendor that messes up the whole design whenever they make any small change. Multidots never does that; the team always clearly knows what they’re doing with the code, and they test it. Overall, working with them has been really smooth.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’s a little confusing at times because it’s not always clear who we should contact. Maggie came into the picture, and we haven’t heard from her in a while. We’d like a bit more clarity; otherwise, everything’s good.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Just be clear on what you need — spell it out and get it done. They’re responsive, communicative, and easy to work with.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder, chief strategist, and project manager for IvyCat, a web development agency that specializes in WordPress web development. We do e-commerce management and complicated implementations of WordPress integrations and third-party services. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Multidots?

We hired full-time developers through Multidots to effectively be our staff.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Multidots provides staffing services for us. They work on a bunch of different projects and websites for us. Moreover, we have different types of clients, and we build brand new websites for them. Most of what Multidots resources do involve custom-optimized WordPress themes and plug-in development. We also redesign and optimize some of those sites.

For example, we have a client that sells complex products. Our team and the Multidots resources use WordPress and WooCommerce, along with other plugins, to accomplish tasks for that site. In other words, we make the website do something that it doesn’t do by default. Our team and Multidots work together to figure out what our deliverables are and put them into the project management system. Then, we plan and work on the deliverables. 

When we start a project, Multidots follow our normal development procedures since we have our own codebase and policies for code review. Because we treat them as in-house employees, they also participate in our standup meetings. They’re also involved in the monthly or weekly maintenance services we provide to our customers.

What is the team composition?

Currently, we work with two people from Multidots. 

How did you come to work with Multidots?

I had seen Multidots in conferences and talked to some of their people in different cities where we had WordPress conferences. Meanwhile, we had another development partner, but I wasn’t entirely happy with them. As a result, I went out and searched for a solution, which reminded me of Multidots. Ultimately, I connected with them and we started talking. That was how we began working together. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $240,000. We pay around $10,000 a month for their services. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2019, and the partnership is ongoing. 

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

It’s tough to quantify success metrics because our team is always getting more efficient. However, since working with Multidots, our billable hours have increased from 30–35 hours per week to 70–75 hours per week. That has had a big effect on our revenue and workload. Simply put, we’ve doubled our capacity. 

How did Multidots perform from a project management standpoint?

The resources from Multidots work on our time schedule, so they deliver on time. As a company, Multidots also deliver. From a sales perspective, we’re able to get a developer quickly. Within a week or so, we get several good resumes, and I can conduct interviews. Overall, Multidots has been amazingly responsive to our needs. 

Moreover, their integration into our workflow has been surprisingly easy. Multidots give each of their developers a week to get used to our company culture. They learn how we do things before they start charging on the clock. As part of that, I interview their developers to know whether we’re comfortable with them. After hiring them, there’s always a learning curve; some of the things we do are complex, so it takes a while for them to truly understand them. However, their resources have the ability to get up and running right away. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Multidots takes the time to get their engineer certified for WordPress VIP. For context, if a WordPress developer wants to publish things on the platform, WordPress has a VIP service meant for large enterprise organizations, such as magazines. The VIP service hosts and drives a ton of traffic through the website. In other words, Multidots’ resources adhere to the higher standards of WordPress development. 

Essentially, if we want to publish things on WordPress, we have to have well-written code that adheres to the platform’s formatting rules. Multidots does that, and they’re committed to the WordPress community. This means a lot to me. Moreover, I’ve received plenty of solicitations from companies around the world, telling us to use them as our developers. I’ve tried other organizations in the past with varying levels of success, but Multidots has everything that I want in a development firm. Overall, Multidots is a highly professional organization. 

In terms of tools, we use Teamwork for project management. We also use Slack for real-time communication. Then, we use Zoom for our daily standups that last for 15–30 minutes. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. Every time a company uses staffing services like this, they’ll always have issues with individual members. However, Multidots’ resources have been terrific. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about what you want and the level of expertise you need. Prepare interview questions that will give you a good idea of the developer’s experience with WordPress. Take that interview seriously and ask technical questions. I do that because I like to see people think on their feet. 

Moreover, keep in mind that Multidots offer different levels of development expertise. You can hire a junior, mid-level, or senior developer, and they have different attributes. As a result, it’s truly important to know what you need to hire the appropriate developer. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the trade association for the US broadcasting industry. I’m the executive director of PILOT, an innovation initiative of the NAB. We work with technology companies and broadcast partners to create new technology and events for the industry.

What challenge were you trying to address with Multidots?

We organize an annual, paper-driven broadcast engineering and IT conference. Our organization publishes papers for that conference. Up until 2020, such papers could be collected, bound up, and made available for purchase. The proceedings were then distributed in different ways.

Given that, our group wanted to streamline the process of collecting, editing, reviewing, and organizing those papers a little better. On top of that, we wanted to make them available online. People should also be able to access and view the proceedings online via PDF. At the same time, they should have access to individual papers. As a result, we contacted Multidots to help us. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Multidots helped us by creating a custom platform using various plugins on WordPress. Essentially, it was a “proceedings store” where authors and editors could upload proceedings and offer them for sale. Simply put, the whole project was to ensure that all e-commerce-related components were set up appropriately. End users should be able to go on the platform and buy such papers and proceeding packages.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a handful of people from Multidots, but we mainly interfaced with two people. One of them was the project manager, and the other one was the more hands-on team leader of their developers.

How did you come to work with Multidots?

Another person that worked for me found Multidots. They had done work for other departments in the NAB before, so they were known in the organization. In other words, they were a referral. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent under $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from January–April 2020, and we finished the bulk of it in the middle of the pandemic. 

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Given the COVID-19 pandemic, the timing of the project was great. When we moved our conference online, the only way to make the proceedings available was via our online portal — we wouldn’t have been able to make the proceedings available without Multidots’ work. We hadn’t planned to do it this way, but the timing was so beneficial. On top of that, the ability to sell our papers in an easier fashion expanded our opportunities to generate revenues and make them more widely available.

Another by-product of Multidots’ work was the changes in our workflow. Because we streamlined the entire process, we also changed the way we worked to make sure it fit the new system. That way, we could better take advantage of what they were doing for us. Simply put, Multidots’ work saved us time in our workflow and in a lot of other areas. We were truly satisfied with what happened. 

How did Multidots perform from a project management standpoint?

I had years of experience working with other companies, and Multidots ranked quite high on my list in terms of communication. If anything was ever unclear, they’d quickly make sure they understood us, which was incredible. 

We communicated online via email and through Basecamp. It was easy to chat with them since they were extremely open and available any time we needed anything. Overall, the Multidots team was great to work with.

What did you find most impressive about them?

While their coding skills were good, their communication skills stood out more than anything else. They made sure that all requirements were met and fully understood, and they didn’t make any assumptions about anything — I was truly happy about that. In a way, this also helped us make sure that we were clear and that what we were saying could be understood. In the end, our interaction was incredibly positive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there weren’t any.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be ready to put extra time into spelling out things and talking to Multidots through the process. They’re highly methodical in their approach to what you want, so making sure that you’re clear with what you want will help you and them. 

For instance, In our engagement, we spent much time telling them what we wanted. It took a little more time than I anticipated, but it was time well spent. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a project manager at All Star Directories, a Seattle-based internet marketing company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Multidots?

We needed their team’s development expertise.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We initially hired Multidots to take on a huge multi-site migration project. Once the project was completed, we decided to onboard them as our development partner. They’ve since helped us build a project management tool to streamline our internal operations.

What is the team composition?

We work with at least 10 resources from Multidots, including their developers and a project manager.

How did you come to work with Multidots?

Multidots was strongly recommended to us by one of our partners that hired their team for a similar project in the past. We then reached out to their team and liked their presentation, so we were happy to onboard them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $300,000–$400,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We kicked off our partnership with Multidots in July 2016, and it’s ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’ve been pleased with Multidots’ site migration efforts, and that’s the primary reason why we’ve been convinced to continue relying on their services. The results they’ve delivered have so far helped us secure improved site traffic and conversion rate.

How did Multidots perform from a project management standpoint?

We mainly communicate via Slack and phone calls. Multidots is a collaborative and transparent team that strives to adhere to our team’s methods while generating innovative work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s any particular area that needs improvement. They’ve been a great partner to us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear in identifying your goals and communicate constantly with their team — I think these tips apply to any working relationship.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the lead Product and Engineering manager for our company. We are creative business consultants who create and implement digital, content, social and entertainment strategies for clients and our own multi-media experiences.

For what projects/services did your company hire Multidots, and what were your goals?

Our proprietary CMS and frontend used for multiple sites, required migration to Wordpress. With limited development resources in-house, we hired Multidots to execute these migrations. Our goals were to reduce platform costs and update aspects of each site, both front end and back end.

How did you select Multidots and what were the deciding factors?

We engaged multiple agencies for proposals. Multidots won the bid based on their pricing, their timeline, as well as the details delivered in their proposal.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We scaled our project by migrating one site at a time, learning from each process to increase productivity and optimize results. We began each migration process with a kickoff meeting and received a detailed project plan and service requirements document from Multidots.

Once the work started, Multidots carefully structured the old site data and worked with my team to ensure there would be no data loss in the migration process. They spent several hours working with members of our team who are the primary clients for the CMS to fully understand their operational tasks.

They created custom wordpress plugins to mimic complicated and very specific use cases for our team. Simultaneously, they used the framework of live design elements and new design templates to build the frontend. Multidots used a variety of technical capabilities to complete each build, common in web development such php, ajax, and javascript.

They also converted our site feeds from json formats to XML. They even assisted on non-wordpress DevOps issues within our 3rd party web-hosting platform. We had multiple demos and meetings throughout the build process to keep track of the work and approve one stage before moving on to the next.

Multidots also engaged in all QA services before including my team on extensive UAT. When the sites were ready, Multidots planned the launch dates around our company’s needs.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

As our project included multiple site builds, I worked with several of the team’s engineering and project management members. The primary point of contact was always the technical project manager, but there was also limited communication with full stack or front end developers when required.

The upper management staff, including the CTO and Business Development lead were also in constant contact to make sure the project was running as expected. By the time the entire project was complete, I had communicated with roughly 7-10 members of Multidots, which made me feel very comfortable with the thoroughness of each build.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The primary goals of the project were met. We significantly reduced cost of an aging platform and generated the framework of new sites, which are poised for a more stable future. The final products allow our staff to work more efficiently, and we can also reduce the amount of resources required to maintain the platform as a whole.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

I received daily, detailed updates from the project manager, or sometimes multiple times per day. Most written communication was done using third party project management software to keep all team members aware of actions being taken. However, we also used email and added Multidots to our company communication tools for matters that required more immediate attention.

We did the vast majority of our meetings over 3rd party video conferencing software. Given the complicated nature of our builds, it did take some time to find the right cadence and structure for our updates. However, Multidots always met our demands and provided transparent access to make communication work as smoothly as possible.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Ultimately, I was most impressed by the amount of work Multidots was able to complete in the timeframe required, especially at a very reasonable cost. I also appreciated their ability to adapt to changing circumstances on the ground level.

When you peel apart an older system for a migration such as this, it helps when everyone understands there’s going to be surprises and somewhat amorphous requirements. Multidots was certainly up to all of our challenges.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Because our project was ongoing for ten months, we ironed out all the wrinkles early on and ended up in a good place. At first, we did have some issues around communication on the QA side of things which caused some small delays.

Nothing ever threatened the completion or stability of the project but a more transparent look at the status of some of the build elements during development at the onset could have made for a better first build. But once aligned on communication and transparency, it was pretty smooth sailing.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Impress.org. We build software for nonprofits.

What challenge were you trying to address with Multidots?

I needed more developers, and Multidots helped me with that.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Multidots integrated with our internal team to work on multiple projects. They provided a frontend team, and they did HTML, CSS, and JavaScript programming. On the backend server-side, their team used PHP, MySQL, and WordPress, specifically as a content management system.

What is the team composition?

At the peak of our engagement, we had a total of six developers from Multidots working with us. We also talked with their sales team when getting the project started.

How did you come to work with Multidots?

I met them at a conference and gave them a test project or two before ramping up our engagement.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent at least $150,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together roughly from January 2017 until January 2019.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

They produced a number of great products for us. Their team completed at least five significant projects that required thousands and thousands of lines of code. Overall, the quality of their work was great. Whenever we noticed an issue, we reached out to their team that was more than happy to correct it.

How did Multidots perform from a project management standpoint?

They integrated into our Slack channels, which was how we communicated in addition to weekly development calls. We largely managed the project ourselves. However, they had internal project managers who accommodated our system.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Multidots was affordable and communicated well. They were also very knowledgeable about WordPress.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve their attention to detail.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have clear deliverables in mind to discuss with them. Set the path for them and then let Multidots follow it.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Owner of a corporate education company

For what projects/services did your company hire Multidots, and what were your goals?

Multidots were hired to build a website.

How did you select Multidots and what were the deciding factors?

Multidots were first consulted about the brief, then delivered a project scope document including milestones, project stakeholders, and detailed costing.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We had a kick-off meeting to discuss the work requirements. Multidots then came back with their plan for implementation and timelines. We agreed on this.

Once the project commenced we had regular meetings and Multidots kept me fully up to date with progress through a shared project management software. Regular meetings were also held via this portal.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

There were approximately 10 different people who worked with me on this project, with one key project manager who oversighted the project and kept all stakeholders on track.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The project was delivered on time, to expectations, and to the agreed costing. I was very happy with the outcome.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

We had weekly catchups via skype, and there was a project management software that was used to track all activities and delivery to milestones.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The communication was fantastic- timely, clear, and detailed. They worked hard to understand my requirements, to check-in, to provide examples, and to ensure I understood the stage the project was at at all times.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

No.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a co-founder and developer for a small software company that focuses on WordPress products.

What challenge were you trying to address with Multidots?

We needed an additional resource to help us develop a new product.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Multidots provided us with a developer with the skillsets we’re looking for and we then we assigned that developer with various tasks. They’ve done all software development and used JavaScript and PHP. There were multiple deliverables depending on what the project they were working on as well. They submitted code requests, which we reviewed and provided feedback on.

They also provided us with the infrastructure and project management to make sure that developer was on-task.

What is the team composition?

We have a single developer working on our project, but we have a few points of contact on their side as well.

How did you come to work with Multidots?

I met their CEO at a small business retreat a couple of years back. When we started looking for more resources, I remembered that he had this company and decided to reach out. We had several conversations and had a good rapport with them. We talked to a few other companies as well, but selected Multidots.

How much have you invested with them?

The one resource was $4,000 per month (approximately $40,000 in total).

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in December in 2019 and we wrapped up in September 2020.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

I’m super happy with everything. The resource we worked with always completed the work that we requested, took feedback very well, and asked smart questions so they could improve after each feedback session.

The support they provided really helped us out because we didn’t have to manage them that much. We reached the end of our development cycle, so we decided that it was a good time to pause our work with Multidots. That’s actually a huge benefit—we’re able to scale up and down based on our needs. We wouldn’t be able to do that if we hired internally.

How did Multidots perform from a project management standpoint?

They provided updates every week and communicated effectively. They stayed on task, and whenever they finished an assignment, they came back to us to ask what to do next. They often took initiative and looked into different issues and made suggestions to help. It was really easy to work with them.

They have project management tools available, but we wanted to use our own internal system, so they just used Slack and GitHub.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their organizational structure impressed me. They were really organized and I never felt like I needed to follow them around. I always knew what was going on because of how their organization is structured.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think so.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Clients need to be engaged. When you’re outsourcing, you need to keep them engaged with tasks that they need to do. As long as you keep the lines of communication open, you’ll have a positive engagement.